Eating solid food again for the first time in a couple of days. Drinking wine again for the first time in a couple days. Enjoying life again for the first time in a couple days. (Jogging still has to be on hold for a couple more days, though ) So I made some proper sausages (not the cheap shite variety, but with proper meat stuffed into a proper intestine: think Alsatian or German quality stuff) enjoyed with Dijon mustard and risotto.

2004 Jean-Luc Colombo Côtes du Rhône Les Abeilles - France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Côtes du Rhône (8/12/2006) 13% 13,49€A pretty enough, ripe, red berried scent with a touch of minerals and earth. The palate is sweetly fruity with soft tannins and surprisingly high acidity. The aftertaste is long and fresh. It should be just the sort of little wine I like, and I can't place my finger on why it doesn't please me. Lack of brett? Not quite enough earth? Slight touch of oak? I don't know, but the whole just doesn't convince me.

2005 André Dezat Sancerre - France, Loire Valley, Upper Loire, Sancerre (8/12/2006) 12,5% 22,30€ (but only so much beacuse imported by Tampereen Viinitukku, who have the highest margins of all importers)Light gold - shows the warmth of the vintage. The nose is quite lovely: fruity, yet grassy as the grape should be, and mineral - deep yet sylishly lean. The palate has fine fruit, fine acidity, fine minerality and fine length. Surprisingly deep yet stylish for the grape. Very nice!

I've been there. Sometimes a wine just doesn't come together and introduce itself as a whole single thing. It has various good (or maybe just Ok) bits and pieces, but in the end, it's just bits and pieces.

I've had that happen with a single bottle of a vintage, where other bottles were just fine, yet there wasn't (to my dull senses) any cork taint. I've also found consistent (well, over two or three bottles <g>) failures to make a statement of self from a few producers. They don't get my long-term purchases.

I think I finally nailed it as to why I didn't like it. Though not spoofulated to the max it was maybe just too modern: it lacked a sense of place. But what we still need to figure out is why I don't usually like Sauv B, because I should like it.

And just to be clear, mild cork taint was impossible because it was under one of those dashed annoying plastic plugs (which should be outlawed).

-O-

I don't drink wine because of religious reasons ... only for other reasons.

Well. Well, well, well. I'm going to have to turn around. We left about a third of the bottle from yesterday and I'll have to say this has become a thouroughly more enjoyable wine!

Drunk with today's dinner of fresh pasta with spinach, hard cheeses and pesto as topping. It's earthy, more savoury and more mineral even! Still, little sense of place but at least the wine has pulled itself together. If it didn't have a plastic plug, I would put one away for 5 years to see if it would become any more Rhoney rather than just a good little wine. I think this would have the structure to go that time. Final verdict: a very nice if unashamedly modern styled wine!

I don't drink wine because of religious reasons ... only for other reasons.

I've never been sold on "natural casing" (makes me queasy enough that I still don't eat the top of the pickle where the vine attached since it brings to mind brauts and similarly enclosed sausages). Is there any real benefit to using intestines?

I, too, have been a sauvignon blanc skeptic. The US West Coast examples have either been overly acidic while at the same time beign odorless and tasteless, or they've been overly grassy in aroma and flavor so it's been like drinking a hay infusion. In both cases, disgusting.

Then you go to the Loire Valley in France, and you learn why sauvignon blanc is considered a respectable grape variety. I love Sancerre. I only wish I could find more of it locally.